Hotel -> Brothel

✰ Link to Artwork: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SGbmsxTV2rwwQ2eSfuQli3PlVRxAG7qq/view?usp=sharing

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood puts an interesting view on love and relationships. The stereotypical man and woman relationship we have become accustomed to is contested in Gilead, a dystopian society the book is centered on. Atwood paints a unique motive by placing sexual beings into a civilization prohibiting their very urges. Characters begin to view touching as a crime and labeling it as “commiting the act of touch.” However, this is not the only thing put into contention throughout the novel.

Starting on Chapter 37, Commander Fred takes our main character Offered out of the confinements of their home. The location that Offered is brought to is a hotel that once was home to the frequent debaucheries that were indulged on by her and her, at the time, paramour. However, the location has gone through a major change. No longer sleek and luxurious, the setting was now dark with lust in the air, along with stray feathers from women’s skimpy costumes floating about, too small to be considered clothes. Too revealing to cover any skin.

In chapter 38, page 245, Offred and her master, holder of her leash, walk into the now brothel, “‘It’s like walking into the past,’ says the Commander. His voice sounds pleased, delighted even.” This was found on Chapter 38, page 245. This quote in particular striked me as fascinating because hotels already appear to have a negative connotation for providing a place for individuals to cheat on their spouses, and in this brothel specifically, it almost seems the women who work at the Jezebels have more freedom than the handmaids. They are free to walk around, converse with their friends as they please, even smoke cigarettes, acts which all are banned for the handmaids. Another quote referring to the presence of the room of the hotel is from chapter 39 page 251, “He unlocks the door of the room. Everything is the same, the very same as it was, once upon a time. The drapes are the same, the heavy flowered ones that match the bedspread, orange poppies on royal blue…All is the same” In this scene, Offered enters the room and immediately, she is rendered speechless from memories of her and Luke, which he can’t, or won’t let herself, move on from.

For my artwork, I wanted to present something that captured the transition between hotel and brothel, and bring in the question which setting serves a better purpose not only in Gilead, but before Gilead. I did this by acquiring two photos and putting them into a slider so you can see the differences between each photo and setting. I deliberately attempted to keep the camera angle the same, to show that while the location is different, they both share negative connotations when it comes to their viewpoint on relationships, both in Gilead and before it. Overall, The Handmaid’s Tale is an extremely compelling novel and readers could spend months absorbing and deciphering all the blood, sweat, and tears that was put into his literature piece, and that is one of the many reason why this novel has such an influence and is still attempted to be decrypted today.